Congratulations

Congratulations to my (former) year 12 class (pictured) who sat their Latin Continuers exam the other day. It was (in my opinion) not a bad exam- there were a couple of questions slightly out of left field, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're well prepared and able to think on your feet it gives you a chance to stand out from the other candidates. The unseens were alright too, and the exam committee was very generous with the amount of vocab they supplied.

Here are a couple of the questions, in case anyone is interested:

Ibi oratio habita nequaquam eius pectoris ingeniique quod simulatum ad eam diem fuerat, de vi ac libidine Sex. Tarquini, de stupro infando Lucretiae et miserabili caede, de orbitate Tricipitini cui morte filiae causa mortis indignior ac miserabilior esset. Addita superbia ipsius regis miseriaeque et labores plebis in fossas cloacasque exhauriendas demersae; Romanos homines, victores omnium circa populorum, opifices ac lapicidas pro bellatoribus factos. Indigna Ser. Tulli regis memorata caedes et inuecta corpori patris nefando vehiculo filia, invocatique ultores parentum di.

(Livy I.59, 8-10)

(i) Explain the connection implied in this extract between the fate of Lucretia and the current condition of the Roman people. (3 marks)

(ii) Explain how Livy uses language in this extract to make the speech moving and persuasive. (5 marks)

Iam res Romana adeo erat ualida ut cuilibet finitimarum civitatum bello par esset; sed penuria mulierum hominis aetatem duratura magnitudo erat, quippe quibus nec domi spes prolis nec cum finitimis conubia essent. Tum ex consilio patrum Romulus legatos circa vicinas gentes misit qui societatem conubiumque novo populo peterent: urbes quoque, ut cetera, ex infimo nasci; dein, quas sua virtus ac di iuvent, magnas opes sibi magnumque nomen facere; satis scire, origini Romanae et deos adfuisse et non defuturam virtutem; proinde ne gravarentur homines cum hominibus sanguinem ac genus miscere. Nusquam benigne legatio audita est:

(Livy I.9, 1-5)

(i) Analyse how Livy presents Romulus as a moral exemplar. Support your answer with specific examples from this extract. (7 marks)

haud procul inde citae Mettum in diversa quadrigae
distulerant (at tu dictis, Albane, maneres!),
raptabatque viri mendacis viscera Tullus
per silvam, et sparsi rorabant sanguine vepres.
nec non Tarquinium eiectum Porsenna iubebat
accipere ingentique urbem obsidione premebat;
Aeneadae in ferrum pro libertate ruebant.
illum indignanti similem similemque minanti
aspiceres, pontem auderet quia vellere Cocles
et fluvium vinclis innaret Cloelia ruptis.
in summo custos Tarpeiae Manlius arcis
stabat pro templo et Capitolia celsa tenebat,
Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo.

(Virgil, Aeneid VIII.642-54)

(i) Describe the narrative technique Virgil has used to include the events mentioned in this extract in his story of Aeneas. (2 marks)

(ii) What is Virgil's purpose in including the individuals mentioned in this extract? (7 marks)

Landscapes of emotion: Aeneas and the Tiber

For my year 12 class, studying hard over this weekend for an assessment task, here are some excerpts from an article (by Richard Jenkyns) I found in a back issue of Omnibus:

It is Virgil's habit to look at familiar things as though they were strange... [and in the Aeneid] he takes the landscape of Italy and... makes us see the familiar as strange. It is also his practice in the Aeneid to look at people and things from various different viewpoints... The Sibyl calls Turnus a second Achilles, but in the end he will play the role of Hector. To Juno and Amata Aeneas seems like a Paris (or so they unjustly claim), but at different times we see him in lights that suggest Hector, Achilles, Jason, Augustus and so on. Virgil walsk round his characters, so to speak, examining them from different angles, casting different lights upon them...

Let us then... apply [these two practices of Virgil's] to the voyage up the Tiber. He allows the reader to the scene from four or five separate points of view, and in each of them the familiar is made strange in at least one way.

First there is the Trojans' viewpoint. They are witnessing a miracle, and they are penetrating into the unknown: the 'cutting through the green woods' is splendidly jungly, and the fine phrase longos superant flexus, which has them 'conquering' each new bend, conveys the sense that they are discovering and exploring things utterly unkown before. Then there is the viewpoint of ourselves, Virgil's Italian readers (I say that because we must imagine ourselves to be Italians of the Augustan age if we are to get into the spirit of the poem): we see the familiar stretch of river between Ostia and Rome made strange in two ways. We see what in our own day is the most densely populated area in the world turned into jungle; and we see the turbulent silty Tiber turned by miracle into a glassy calm (Tiber was notoriously yellow from the mud it carried; we see it in this form, yellow and eddying, near the start of the seventh book)...

One last point of view remains, that of the landscape itself. The passage is flooded with words for wonder: 'mirantur... miratur' But by a stroke of genius Virgil attributes this not to the Trojans - we can take it for granted that they marvel - but to the woods and waters... Virgil makes us suppose that the wonderment of nature here is not just a loose way of talking but a reality, part of the wonder itself: one aspect of the miracle is that the landscape comes alive and feels.

Tiberinus

This is how I imagine Tiberinus would have looked. I'm not sure who the actual statue is meant to be (it was taken in the gardens out the front of a castle built by the mad king Ludwig on an island in the middle of a lake in Bavaria), but it has the kind of wild sollemnity that Virgil describes in these lines from Aeneid VIII:

Huic deus ipse loci fluvio Tiberinus amoeno
populeas inter senior se attollere frondes
visus; eum tenuis glauco velabat amictu
carbasus, et crinis umbrosa tegebat harundo.
tum sic adfari et curas his demere dictis:

'O sate gente deum, Troianam ex hostibus urbem
qui revehis nobis aeternaque Pergama servas,
exspectate solo Laurenti arvisque Latinis,
hic tibi certa domus, certi (ne absiste) penates.'

To this man [Aeneas] the god of that place, old Tiberinus himself, appeared, lifting himself up from his hallowed stream, between the poplar leaves; a thin linen garment cloaked him with its grey-green mantle, and a clump of shady reeds hid his hair. Then the god spoke to him, and took away his worries with these words: 'O seed of the race of the gods, you who brings back to us the Trojan city, and who preserves eternal Pergumum, long-awaited on Laurentine soil, and in the Latin fields, here is a fixed home for you, here (fear not) are your fixed gods.'

[Aeneid VIII.31-39]

superbus

Superbus is an odd Latin word. It’s obviously the root of ‘superb’, but the meaning of the Latin word is quite different to that of its English derivative, which generally has only positive connotations. Superbus has the basic meaning of ‘proud’, but can be used in a positive or a negative sense. For example in Book VIII of the Aeneid (where the word occurs seven times), it can be used to describe Hercules, the heroic slayer of the monster Cacus (and 'type' of Augustus):

nam maximus ultor
tergemini nece Geryonae spoliisque superbus
Alcides aderat…
For our great avenger, the son of Alceus [Hercules] was at hand, exalting in the death and spoils of three-bodied Geryon…

Virgil, Aeneid VIII.201-2

monsters and portents

If you had to guess the meanings of the Latin words monstrum and portentum, chances are you'd go with their English derivations; 'monster' and 'portent' (i.e. an omen, or sign from the gods). And you'd be right. For example, have a look at the following passages:

huic monstro Volcanus erat pater: illius atros
ore vomens ignis magna se mole ferebat.

Vulcan was the father of this monster: vomiting his father’s black fire from his mouth he would move around with his huge bulk.

Virgil, Aeneid VIII.198-9

tum memorat: 'ne vero, hospes, ne quaere profecto
quem casum portenta ferant: ego poscor Olympo.’

Then [Aeneas] declared: ‘There is no need, my friend, no need to ask what these portents mean: I am called for by Olympus.'

Virgil, Aeneid VIII.532-3

That seems fairly straight forward. Except monstrum doesn't usually mean 'monster'- its basic meaning is 'portent'; portentum on the other hand, can sometimes mean 'monster'. In the following passages for example:

Ecce autem subitum atque oculis mirabile monstrum,
candida per silvam cum fetu concolor albo
procubuit viridique in litore conspicitur sus;

Now suddenly before his eyes there appeared a portent. There through the trees he caught sight of a white sow with offspring of the same colour, lying on the green shore.

Virgil, Aeneid VIII.81-3

namque me silva lupus in Sabina...
fugit inermem.

quale portentum neque militaris
Daunias latis alit aesculetis,
nec Iubae tellus generat, leonum
arida nutrix

For in the Sabine forests a wolf fled from me... unarmed as I was. A monster such as not even warlike Daunia rears in her broad oak forests, nor the land of Juba, that barren nurse of lions.

Horace, Odes I.22.9, 12-16

Why is this so? The basic meaning of each word is to do with signs and omens; each noun derives from a verb- monstrum from monstro, monstrare (to show; cf ‘demonstrate’) and portentum from portendo, portendere (to reveal), thus both words mean something which has been shown or revealed. The secondary meaning of ‘monster’ comes from the idea that monsters are somehow sent from the gods, often as a punishment for some kind of wrong doing (eg the Minotaur, the Calydonian Boar), or that they are able to show the will of the gods in some way.

[These two articles also discuss the word monstrum and related English words]

dies romae natalis

[The forum Romanum from the Palatine hill, where Romulus (supposedly) recieved his favourable omen from the gods]

I'm meant to be on holidays, but I couldn't let such an important date go unremarked. Yesterday Rome celebrated its 2761st birthday. There are some great photos of the celebrations at Rome here, here and here.

April 21st, 753 B.C. is the traditional date for the founding of the city by Romulus and Remus; this is how Livy recounts events:

Ita Numitori Albana re permissa Romulum Remumque cupido cepit in iis locis ubi expositi ubique educati erant urbis condendae...

Romulus and Remus, after the control of Alba had passed to Numitor in the way I have described, were suddenly seized by the desire to found a new settlement on the spot where they had been exposed and subsequently brought up...

Intervenit deinde his cogitationibus avitum malum, regni cupido, atque inde foedum certamen coortum a satis miti principio.

Unhappily the brothers' plans for the future were marred by the same source which had divided their grandfather and Amulius- a lust for power. A disgraceful quarrel arose from a matter in itself trivial.

Quoniam gemini essent nec aetatis verecundia discrimen facere posset, ut di quorum tutelae ea loca essent auguriis legerent qui nomen novae urbi daret, qui conditam imperio regeret, Palatium Romulus, Remus Aventinum ad inaugurandum templa capiunt.

Since they were twins and no distinction of age could be made between them, they determined to ask the gods under whose care those places were, to declare by means of augury who should govern the new city, once it had been founded, and give his name to it. Romulus took to the Palatine Hill, Remus to the Aventine, in order to take the auguries.

Priori Remo augurium venisse fertur, sex voltures; iamque nuntiato augurio cum duplex numerus Romulo se ostendisset, utrumque regem sua multitudo consalutauerat: tempore illi praecepto, at hi numero auium regnum trahebant. Inde cum altercatione congressi certamine irarum ad caedem vertuntur; ibi in turba ictus Remus cecidit.

Remus, so the story goes, was the first to receive a sign- six vultures; and no sooner was this announced than double the number of birds appeared to Romulus. The followers of each promptly hailed their own master as king, one side basing its claim upon priority, the other upon number. Angry words ensued, followed by blows, their anger turned to violence, and there, in the crowd, Remus was struck and fell down dead.

Volgatior fama est ludibrio fratris Remum novos transiluisse muros; inde ab irato Romulo, cum verbis quoque increpitans adiecisset, "Sic deinde, quicumque alius transiliet moenia mea," interfectum. Ita solus potitus imperio Romulus; condita urbs conditoris nomine appellata.

There is another, more common story, that Remus, making fun of his brother, jumped over the newly-built walls, whereupon Romulus killed him in a fit of rage, adding the threat, 'So perish whoever else shall overleap my battlements.' In this way Romulus gained sole possession of power; the city, having been founded, was took its name from its founder.

The Cave of Romulus?

According to this article (and this video) in yesterday's smh, archaeologists have discovered "the legendary cave where the she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus, saving them from death." Or to be more accurate "Experts say they are "reasonably certain" it is the long-lost place of worship sacred to ancient Romans and known as Lupercale, from the Latin word for wolf." That means they think it's the place, that the Romans used to think was the place, where Romulus and Remus were saved by a wolf.

Livy records the story of the she-wolf finding Romulus and Remus, in the following passage:

Tenet fama cum fluitantem alveum, quo expositi erant pueri, tenuis in sicco aqua destituisset, lupam sitientem ex montibus qui circa sunt ad puerilem vagitum cursum flexisse; eam submissas infantibus adeo mitem praebuisse mammas ut lingua lambentem pueros magister regii pecoris invenerit (Faustulo fuisse nomen ferunt). ab eo ad stabula Larentiae uxori educandos datos.

Rumour prevails, that when the shallow water had left the floating basket, in which the boys had been abandoned, on dry ground, a thirsty wolf, down from the mountains which surround that place, bent her course to the boys' wailing. She lowered her teats, and offered them to the children so gently, that the master of the king's found her licking the boys with her tongue (they say his name was Faustulus). He took them home and gave them to his wife Larentia to be brought up.

However it seems Livy is a bit sceptical about the likelihood of this story, and so he tells us another story, which accounts for the development of this myth:

Sunt qui Larentiam volgato corpore lupam inter pastores vocatam putent; inde locum fabulae ac miraculo datum.

There those who say that Larentia was called 'Wolf' by the shepherds, since she was a prostitute; and this is the source of that incredible story.

Epic

There's a lot of epic going round at the moment. A new Beowulf film opens at the end of this month, and there's also a theatre version of Gilgamesh on in Sydney at the moment. In the last few years there's also been the movie Troy, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was at least epic in scope, if not form.

There's an interesting article in the paper today about myths (Beowulf in particular) and why our culture remains fascinated by them, even after so long. Here are a few excerpts:

Scholars, authors and fans say the poem endures because it is a timeless yarn about brave souls purging peaceful societies of agents of evil...

It seems we just can't let go of Beowulf or it won't let go of us," says Robert Ellwood, professor emeritus of religion at the University of Southern California. "Every time a classic is adapted, some scholars claim it's their providence and others shouldn't mess with it. Some others, however, argue that the more up-to-date a myth is the better."

Ellwood adds: "I tend to agree with [Claude] Levi-Strauss, who said, 'A myth is all of its variants across time and space.' In other words, a myth is for right now; it's a living thing that adapts to different social situations."

I would add another observation, that most epics tend to be about action rather than character, and (generally speaking) action-driven movies are much more appealing to a broad audience than character-driven ones.

I wonder if that's why there hasn't been an English-speaking movie of the Aeneid ever made (as far as I'm aware).

Firstly the Aeneid is largely about the character of Aeneas. Sure, it's full of battles, and there's a bit of a love story thrown in, but what concerns Virgil most is the character of Aeneas, and his transformation.

Secondly, the Aeneid is not a timeless story about good and evil. It's firmly rooted in the history of the first century B.C., and celebrates (in an allegorical manner) the defeat of Antony by Augustus, and his establishment of 'peace'. Civil wars are especially messy, and there's a measure of ambiguity in the Aeneid that reflects this. It's by no means a black and white tale about good and evil.

HSC Latin exam

Well, I've had a look at today's HSC paper, and I'm pretty happy. It was a pretty good paper, in that there weren't really any surprising or tricky questions; everything was clearly related to the prescribed study areas, and the passages chosen were of obvious importance, with lots that could be said about them. Here are a couple of the questions:

Brutus illis luctu occupatis cultrum ex vulnere Lucretiae extractum, manantem cruore prae se tenens, "Per hunc" inquit "castissimum ante regiam iniuriam sanguinem iuro, vosque, di, testes facio me L. Tarquinium Superbum cum scelerata coniuge et omni liberorum stirpe ferro igni quacumque dehinc vi possim exsecuturum, nec illos nec alium quemquam regnare Romae passurum." Cultrum deinde Collatino tradit, inde Lucretio ac Valerio, stupentibus miraculo rei, unde novum in Bruti pectore ingenium. Ut praeceptum erat iurant; totique ab luctu versi in iram, Brutum iam inde ad expugnandum regnum vocantem sequuntur ducem.

(AUC I.59.1-2)

Analyse the dramatic presentation of Brutus in this extract, with reference to Livy's aims. (8 marks)

The questions worth the most marks have tended to be double barrelled ones in the last few years, which gives you plenty to write about. In terms of drama in this passage, there's the direct speech Livy gives to Brutus with its formal tone and rhetorical devices. Livy also describes Brutus' actions in quite a dramatic way, emphasising the dagger throughout as Brutus first pulls it out of Lucretia's wound, then holds it up for all to see, then passes it to his companions to swear upon. It's all a bit melodramatic.

The drama of the passage allows you to talk about Livy's aims in two ways; firstly he is holding Brutus up as a moral exemplar, someone whose example in standing up to tyranny he wants his readers to follow. Livy intended above all his history to be one which provided a moral message. But Livy also aimed to entertain his readers, and we see that in his dramatic portrayal of Brutus- he presents the story with a certain creativity, which perhaps detracts from the accuracy of his narrative, but adds to its power to engage and entertain.


hinc procul addit
Tartareas etiam sedes, alta ostia Ditis,
et scelerum poenas, et te, Catilina, minaci
pendentem scopulo Furiarumque ora trementem,
secretosque pios, his dantem iura Catonem.

hinc Augustus agens Italos in proelia Caesar
cum patribus populoque, penatibus et magnis dis,
stans celsa in puppi, geminas cui tempora flammas
laeta vomunt patriumque aperitur vertice sidus.
parte alia ventis et dis Agrippa secundis
arduus agmen agens, cui, belli insigne superbum,
tempora navali fulgent rostrata corona.
hinc ope barbarica variisque Antonius armis,
victor ab Aurorae populis et litore rubro,
Aegyptum virisque Orientis et ultima secum
Bactra vehit, sequiturque (nefas) Aegyptia coniunx.

(Aeneid VIII.666-70, 678-88)

Analyse Virgil's use of characterisation and contrast to reveal heroic attributes in this extract. (7 marks)

Another double-barrelled question! This passage is the climax to Virgil's descrition of Aeneas' shield, and I would have been surprised if it wasn't in the exam. There's lots to talk about in terms of characterisation and contrast. Augustus is shown alongside the senate, the people and the gods of Rome, in fact he is even portrayed as a god himself, with images of light and fire, whereas Antony is foreign- barbaric even- and sacrilegous, and in contrast to Augustus who stands high on the prow of his ship, he slinks along behind a foreign woman!

This strong contrast shows us what Virgil considers true heroism- it involves both courage in leading, and a deep respect and reverence for the gods (pietas). These are the qualities we see in Aeneas throughout book VIII, and these are the qualities Virgil also assigns to Augustus, and shows to be lacking in Antony.

Milky Richness

There’s a famous passage in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria where he describes the ‘milky richness’ (lactea ubertas) of Livy’s Histories. It’s a very evocative phrase, which I’ve often thought related to the smoothness of Livy’s prose style, “rich, smooth, free from turbulence” or “flowing… avoiding the abruptness of Thucydides’s Greek and Sallust’s Latin” as it has been variously described.

[by H. J. Rose in A Handbook of Latin Literature (p300), and J. Wight Duff in A Literary History of Rome from the Origins to the Close of the Golden Age (p480) respectively]

However I recently read an article which suggested another possible interpretation of the phrase. The author points out that “Livy is remarkable for the extreme range of styles which he uses in his narrative to achieve variety”, and that it’s therefore a bit of a stretch to characterise his style as smooth and flowing.

A better way of understanding Quintilian’s phrase (so the author argues) is that Livy’s writing is ‘nutritional’ and ‘appropriate for infants’; that is, it is good for students of rhetoric as it provides them with good models to imitate; it helps them to ‘grow up’ as speakers, just as milk helps babies to grow up and mature. The metaphor of milk in the context of education is found elsewhere in Quintilian, in several first century Greek writers, and even in the bible. It also fits with Quintilian’s own methods of education. As he writes in his Insititutio Oratoria (2.5.19)

“For my part I would have them read the best authors from the very beginning and never leave them, choosing those, however, who are simplest and most intelligible. For instance when prescribing [texts] for boys, I should give Livy the preference over Sallust; for although the latter is the greater historian, one requires to be well advanced in one’s studies to appreciate him properly.”

It is good for young boys to read Livy not because he is the best historian, but because his writing will help them to mature in their studies.(Quintilian is silent on what girls should read.)

The article finishes up with this helpful summary:

“I conclude, then, that illa lactea ubertas Livi is an assertion that students at the elementary levels of the oratorical curriculum can obtain from reading Livy the sort of supplementary information and stylistic skills which keep their speeches from being bare bones. They will encounter unusual words, rhythmic prose structures, notable tropes, other ornamental features, and a general fullness of style which are the components of ubertas. And they will encounter them in an author who will prove enjoyable and engaging, and thus suitable to their youth.”

[Lactea Ubertas: What's Milky about Livy? Steve Hays The Classical Journal, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Dec., 1986 - Jan., 1987), pp. 107-116]

C.S. Lewis, Time and the Aeneid

One of the most helpful things I've ever read on the Aeneid comes from a strange source- C.S. Lewis in his preface to Paradise Lost. Here's what he has to say about time in the Aeneid:

'...so true an artist as Virgil could not be content with the clumsiness and monotony of a mere chronicle. His solution to the problem- one of the most important revolutions in the history of poetry- was to take one single national legend and treat it in such a way that we feel the vaster theme to be somehow implicit in it. He has to tell a comparatively short story and give us the illusion of having lived through a great space of time. He has to deal with a limited number of personages and make us feel as if national, or almost cosmic, issues are involved. He must locate his action in a legendary past and yet make us feel the present, and the intervening centuries, already foreshadowed...

'The more obvious instances of this enlargement of Virgil's subject have, no doubt, often been noticed- the glimpses of the future in Jove's prophecy in Book I, or in the vision of Anchises, or in the shield, or again the connexion of the whole of the fourth Book with the Punic Wars. Perhaps the most moving of all these forward links is the visit of Aeneas to the future site of Rome in Book VIII.

'The backward links [in time] are of equal importance... If I am not mistaken it is almost the first poem which carries a real sense of the "abysm of time". Priscus, vetus and antiquus are key-words in Virgil. In Books VI to VIII- the true heart of the poem- we are never allowed to forget that Latium- Lurkwood, the hiding place of aged Saturn- has been waiting for the Trojans from the beginning of the world.'

[C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost pp. 33 ff.]

Rome, the past and future

As my year 12 class has studied Aeneid VIII this year, we've been looking at how Virgil represents Rome's past and future (ie the future from Aeneas' point of view. For Virgil it was the present, for us it's the past.). It's easy to spot references to the Rome of Virgil's day as you read Aeneid VIII, but it's more difficult to explain Virgil's purpose in doing so. I recently read an article which, I thought, expressed it well. Talking about the "interweaving of present, past and future" it says:

‘One of the themes of the book is the union of different peoples. The Trojans, the past inhabitants of Italy, fuse with her present inhabitants into a future people, the Italians. The fact that Evander anticipates this development and thus speaks of “we Italians” (VIII, 331 f.) is not one of Virgil’s “inconsistencies”, but serves to underscore this theme explicitly. A last example of this interplay of the various time levels may be taken from the Hercules-Cacus episode itself. Evander speaks of Hercules’ adventure as if he and his men had been present (200-1):

attulit et nobis aliquando optantibus aetas
auxilium adventumque dei.
It would seem, then, that Evander, Hercules and Aeneas were contemporaries. This was chronologically untenable, and thus the event, represented first as contemporary, is later projected into the mythical past (268-9):

ex illo celebratus honos laetique minores
servavere diem.
On a different level, the et nobis may well refer to Vergil’s contemporaries, the god whose advent is being celebrated being Augustus. Thus the line between past and present is again blurred, and the “Augustan future” is superimposed on the original time level.’

[Karl Galinsky, "The Hercules-Cacus Episode in Aeneid VIII," AJP 87 (1966) 22 f. Thanks to James for recommending this article.]

The more things change...

Over the holidays I asked my year 12 class to read the whole of Livy book I, of which we will be studying extracts this year. I find it a really interesting book- more mythology than history- as Livy himself acknowledges in his preface:

"Events before Rome was born, or even thought of, have come to us in old tales with more of the charm of poetry than of a sound historical record, and such traditions I propose neither to affirm nor refute. There is no reason, I feel, to object when antiquity draws no hard line between the human and the supernatural: it adds dignity to the past, and, if any nation deserves the privilege of claiming a divine ancestry, that nation is our own..."

This seems a strange way to write history, but it gives us a glimpse into what Livy thought history was meant to be. For Livy, history was not just about communicating what had happened in the past, it was meant to be something that informed how you lived in the present. And so Livy would not hesitate to include a story he doubted the truth of, as long as it fitted in with his overall aim of helping the Roman people to be more moral. Livy elaborates on his aims later in his preface:

"The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and for your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid."

Livy (like many Romans I suspect) had a pretty nostalgic view of Rome's past. He saw that wealth and power had brought to Rome greed, corruption and a general moral decline,

and looked back to the great Romans of the past (Brutus, Camillus, Scipio) with sentimental fondness, imagining that their lack of wealth had made them great, indeed had made Rome herself great. This is how he himself puts it:

"I do honestly believe that no country has ever been greater or purer than ours or richer in good citizens and noble deeds; none has been free for so many generations from the vices of avarice and luxury, nowhere have thrift and plain living been for so long held in such esteem. Indeed, poverty, with us, went hand in hand with contentment. Of late years wealth has made us greedy, and self-indulgence has brought us, through every form of sensual excess, to be, if I may so put it, in love with death, both individual and collective."

Livy has some pretty harsh words for his contemporaries- in another place he writes of his own society "we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them."

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

[ps The sculpture at the top of this post is generally assumed to be of Etruscan origin and to date to some time in the 5th century BC. It's been known for some time that the figures of Romulus and Remus were medieval additions to the original, though an article last year suggested that it may in fact have been made sometime in the middle ages]

Aeneid part IV- A Tragic Loss

Aeneid II.776-784
"quid tantum insano iuvat indulgere dolori,
o dulcis coniunx? non haec sine numine divum
eveniunt; nec te comitem hinc portare Creusam
fas, aut ille sinit superi regnator Olympi.
longa tibi exsilia et vastum maris aequor arandum,
et terram Hesperiam venies, ubi Lydius arva
inter opima virum leni fluit agmine Thybris.
illic res laetae regnumque et regia coniunx
parta tibi; lacrimas dilectae pelle Creusae."

"O dear husband, why does it please you so much to indulge this mad grief? These things do not happen without the will of the gods; it was not right for you to carry your companion Creusa from here, nor does the ruler of Olympus above allow it. There is in store for you a long exile and the vast plain of the sea to be ploughed, before you come to land of Hesperia, where the Lydian Tiber flows in a gentle stream, amidst the fertile fields of men. There a happy fate awaits you, and a kingdom, and a royal bride; stop your tears for your beloved Creusa."


As Aeneas reaches the safety of the hills outside Troy with his father and young son, he suddenly notices that his wife, Creusa, is no longer with him. He rushes impetuously back to the burning city to try to find her, but to no avail. Finally her ghost appears to him in this passage, and reminds him of the destiny which awaits him in Italy (‘the land of Hesperia’). Creusa’s death at this point is a necessary plot device for Virgil. Not only does it allow him to emphasise Aeneas' destiny, but he also needs to get Creusa out of the way fairly quickly so that he can introduce the relationship between Aeneas and Dido. It is interesting that when Aeneas visits the underworld (book VI) he meets the ghost of Dido in a highly emotional scene, and is reunited with his dead father (more on this later), but nowhere is Creusa mentioned.

We also see again in this passage an important aspect of pietas. Aeneas’ desperate search for his wife amid the destruction of Troy is bravely heroic, and possibly even romantic, but that is not how Creusa describes it- she calls it an insano dolori- a mad grief. The pius thing for Aeneas to do in this situation is to recognise the will of the gods (as Creusa urges Aeneas to do), and to get on with the destiny that lies before him, not giving in to the pain he feels. This seems a little heartless, but it is a very Roman idea, and one found often in Stoic philosophy, which held that it was possible to overcome the discord of the outside world and find peace within oneself, by mastering one’s passions and emotions.

Aeneid part III- The End of an Era

Aeneid II.3-17

infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem,
Troianas ut opes et lamentabile regnum
eruerint Danai, quaeque ipse miserrima vidi
et quorum pars magna fui. quis talia fando
Myrmidonum Dolopumve aut duri miles Ulixi
temperet a lacrimis? et iam nox umida caelo
praecipitat suadentque cadentia sidera somnos.
sed si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros
et breviter Troiae supremum audire laborem,
quamquam animus meminisse horret luctuque refugit,
incipiam. fracti bello fatisque repulsi
ductores Danaum tot iam labentibus annis
instar montis equum divina Palladis arte
aedificant, sectaque intexunt abiete costas;
votum pro reditu simulant; ea fama vagatur.
“Unspeakable, O Queen, is the grief you order me to renew, how the Greeks destroyed the wealth of Troy and that mournful kingdom- I myself saw these most wretched things, and was a large part of them. Which soldier of the Myrmidons or the Dolopians or of cruel Ulysses would refrain from tears in the telling of such things? And now the dewy night rushes from the sky, and the falling stars urge sleep. But if you have such a great desire to learn of our misfortunes, and to hear briefly of the final suffering of Troy- although my mind shudders and recoils from the grief- I shall begin. Broken by war, and driven back by the fates, the leaders of the Greeks, with so many years now slipping away, build with the divine skill of Minerva, a horse the size of a mountain, and weave its ribs from planks of fir-wood; they pretend it is an offering to the gods for their safe return; this is the rumour which spreads.”


Having been shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, Aeneas and his men end up in Carthage, where Queen Dido welcomes them kindly. She has heard of the fame and sufferings of the Trojans and over a lavish banquet held in their honour (during which she begins to fall for Aeneas) she asks him to tell the story of the treachery of the Greeks, the sufferings of his people, and his own journey since leaving Troy. Aeneas obliges, and books II and III of the Aeneid are Aeneas’ recounting of the fall of Troy (book II) and his wanderings around the Mediterranean in search of a new homeland for his people (book III).

Aeneas’ narration of the destruction of Troy is an emotionally intense tale, full of pathos and drawing from elements of Greek tragedy. But it is more than that. As we have seen before, the progression from Troy to Rome is an important theme for Virgil, especially in the character of Aeneas. Aeneas’ journey from Troy can be seen as his journey away from the old model of heroism, towards a new and better ideal, characterised by pietas. Thus the city of Troy itself stands for the out-dated values of the heroic age, and its destruction is an important moment; the passing of the old is necessary so that something greater- Rome- may arise. Significantly the destruction of Troy in the second book of the first half of Virgil’s poem is balanced by Aeneas' visit to the future site of Rome in the second book of the second half of the poem (book VIII). Where book II laments the passing of the old world, book VIII celebrates the coming of the new.

In book III, on his journey round the Mediterranean, Aeneas meets Helenus, a son of Priam and survivor of the destruction of Troy, who does not seem to understand this principle. Helenus is living in the past, and has tried to recreate the city of Troy with “a citadel modelled on great Pergamum and a dried up river they called the Xanthus”. Helenus does not seem to understand that the destruction of Troy is in fact its judgement too. For Virgil, Troy was destroyed not simply because the Greeks were too clever, but because its time had passed and something new was necessary. Aeneas' task is not to resurrect a new Troy in Italy (as Helenus has tried to do) but to establish a new city, based on new ideals. As Juno says in book XII “Troy has fallen. Let it lie…”

Aeneid part II- A New Kind of Hero

Aeneid I.92-101

extemplo Aeneae solvuntur frigore membra:
ingemit, et duplicis tendens ad sidera palmas
talia voce refert: 'o terque quaterque beati,
quis ante ora patrum Troiae sub moenibus altis
contigit oppetere! o Danaum fortissime gentis
Tydide! mene Iliacis occumbere campis
non potuisse, tuaque animam hanc effundere dextra,
saevus ubi Aeacidae telo iacet Hector, ubi ingens
Sarpedon, ubi tot Simois correpta sub undis
scuta virum galeasque et fortia corpora volvit?'


Immediately Aeneas’ limbs grow weak with cold: he groans, and stretching both hands to the stars cries out in with these words: “O three and four times blessed, you who were permitted to die before the faces of your fathers, beneath the lofty walls of Troy! O Diomedes, bravest of the race of Greeks! Why could I not have perished on the Trojan plain, and have poured out my life at your right hand, where fierce Hector lies by the spear of Achilles, where great Sarpedon, where the river Simois rolls and carries beneath its waves the helmets and shields and brave bodies of men.


This is Aeneas’ first appearance in the Aeneid, and we see once again a strong similarity to the work of Homer. Aeneas and his crew are caught in a storm stirred up against them by the goddess Juno, in a scene similar to one in Homer’s Odyssey. There Odysseus cries out “Thrice happy and more were those among the Greeks who long ago perished in the wide land of Troy to do the will of the sons of Atreus! If only I too had died, and had met my doom on the day when the thronging Trojans hurled their bronze-pointed spears against me in the battle round the dead son of Peleus.”

What both Odysseus and Aeneas here express is more than just dissatisfaction with their present sufferings- it reflects a particularly Homeric ideal of heroism. It is not simply death that each cries out for, but a glorious, heroic death in battle. This is the kind of heroism typical of Achilles, who was told that he could choose between a long but dull life and a glorious but brief life. For Achilles the desire for glory outweighed that for life, hence his involvement in the Trojan War.

This kind of heroism is also seen throughout the Aeneid, though never in a positive light. It is the kind of heroism displayed by King Priam, who tries heroically but pointlessly to fight Pyrrhus, by Nisus and Euryalus who attack their enemy’s camp at night, but fail to get a message through to Aeneas, and by Aeneas himself when he is told by Hector to flee the burning city of Troy, but instead rushes madly through the city until his mother Venus appears to him, and urges him to save himself and his family.

In the Aeneid we see a new definition of what it means to be heroic- to be pius, to have pietas. To be pius has religious connotations, but it involves more than just piety. It involves a feeling of duty towards the gods, the state and one's family. In English it is a difficult concept to translate, but ‘dutiful’ perhaps comes closest the Roman idea. pius is the adjective most commonly used to describe Aeneas in the Aeneid, and his pietas is seen most prominently in his submission to the will of the gods, especially at personal cost (i.e. leaving Dido in book IV) and in his rescue of his family from the ruins of Troy. He does not always display such pietas- in many ways he is a flawed hero- but it is this quality which Virgil holds up as the ideal for his hero, and into which Aeneas grows over the course of the Aeneid.

Aeneid part I- A New Kind of Epic

My year 11 class are doing an introduction to the Aeneid at the moment. We'll be translating ten short passages from the Aeneid, and looking at what they tell us about its story and themes. As we go through each passage I'll post it here, along with a translation and a short discussion of what makes it an important passage. Here's the first instalment.

Aeneid I.1-7

arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.

I sing of battles, and of the man who first came from the shores of Troy, an exile of fate, to Italy and the shores of Lavinia, greatly harassed on land and sea by the power of the gods, for the sake of the unforgetting anger of Juno; many things he suffered too in war, before he could at last establish a city, and bring his gods to Latium, from whence comes the Latin race, the Alban fathers and the walls of lofty Rome.


Virgil’s Aeneid is essentially the story of a man (virum)- Aeneas, a Trojan prince who leads a band of survivors from the ruined city of Troy to a new homeland in Italy. This was a story that was well known to the Romans and had been told before by the Roman poets Naevius and Ennius. The story of the Trojan War had of course also been told by Homer from the Greek perspective in the Iliad and the Odyssey. In fact, Virgil in his first two words deliberately refers to Homer’s poems. Broadly speaking the Iliad is a poem about battle, and the Odyssey about a man- Odysseus. In fact the first word of the Odyssey is 'ανερ' (aner, man), echoed in sound by arma, and in meaning by virum. Virgil’s point is that his poem is in the same tradition of epic poetry as Homer, dealing with the same themes (wars, gods, heroes). Indeed much of the material in the Aeneid is based on Homer’s poetry, and the Aeneid is often broken into two halves; the story of Aeneas' journey in books I-VI (Virgil’s Odyssey) and the story of the battles he must fight when he reaches Italy in books VII-XII (Virgil’s Iliad). But in this passage Virgil also introduces a new element, something that sets his poem apart from those of Homer: Romae- left til the end of the sentence for emphasis and dramatic effect. Virgil’s poem is not only the story of war and heroes, it is also about Roman identity, morality and destiny. The Aeneid is in a sense Roman propaganda- written in a time when Rome was just emerging from decades of civil war it is a reflection on what made Rome great, and a vision of what Virgil hopes she (and her ruler, Augustus) may become.

arma virumque cano...

Virgil’s Aeneid is one of the most important works of Latin literature, and one which we will be studying for our year 12 course next year. Unfortunately, we will only have time to study extracts from one of the 12 books (book 8), but it’s important to have an understanding of the structure and themes of the work as a whole, to give us a context for the sections we will be reading.

Read about the Aeneid on these sites, then make some notes on the questions which follow.

wikipaedia

sparknotes

the classics pages

classics technology centre

idmon

• What is epic poetry?
• What is the basic plot of the Aeneid?
• Who are some of the important characters in the Aeneid?
• Why did Virgil write the Aeneid?

Over the next two weeks we will be reading extracts from different parts of the Aeneid. As you prepare your translations, here are some sites that might help you:

Here you can find the Latin text of the Aeneid. If you click on a word it will give you its meaning, and for some sections it will also provide background and commentary.

Here is an English translation.

Here is a good online dictionary.